How a Mind Works
by pechii
Summary: Emerald Pair / InuKai. A short, semi-introspective drabble. Kaidoh knew his upperclassman Inui fairly well and yet it seemed he didn't know him at all.


After hours of rigorous training, days of specialized, tailored practice, and weeks of precise timetables organized down to the minutest and most exacting detail, Kaidoh knew his upperclassman Inui fairly well.

And yet it seemed he didn't know him at all.

Sure, he had memorized Inui's schedule. He knew if Inui would arrive on time to their riverside training sessions. (He would, unless he overlooked some small variable in his preliminary calculations, in which case he would send a brief text message and be an average of seventeen minutes late. Twenty-three minutes if he double-checked his work afterward.) He had a basic idea of where Inui would be and when – what time of night he usually analyzed data, when he ran out of something and needed to buy more, how often he had his racket re-strung.

He also knew most of Inui's habits to a tee. How he always tied the left shoe first in a perfect double-knot before looping the laces on the right. How he would press a thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose, propping up his glasses and squeezing his eyes shut when working out a particularly challenging problem through mutters under his breath. How he hesitated with a gentle, indecisive pressure before pushing on Kaidoh's back, deepening a sitting stretch before they ran. How he eventually grew out of that habitual hesitation the longer they trained together.

But though Kaidoh had glimpsed those emerald eyes on more than one occasion, he was unsure of the inner mechanisms working behind them. Glancing over the older boy's hand into his data notebook while he vigorously explained some aspect of physics Kaidoh was sure he could overcome with persistent work and heavier ankle-weights, Kaidoh saw only figures and numbers and words that hardly seemed related to tennis at all. Dots carefully placed throughout a plot with thin but steady lines connecting each. Sprawling equations filled with numbers and letters and things that must have been letters but certainly weren't Japanese or English. It was chicken-scratch to Kaidoh, nothing more. But he trusted Inui and didn't want to disappoint his upperclassman. So he nodded and hissed and inwardly resolved to do twice what Inui asked of him.

It must have made sense to Inui. In his mind there must have been some decoder that took all the letters and numbers, dots resting on lines and deftly shaded bars, figures and diagrams and shorthand notations, took all of this chaos and arranged them into order, translating it all from the language of raw data to that of people. Kaidoh found it hard to believe that Inui's notebooks contained the same words in glyphs and symbols that fell from his training partner's mouth in careful, eloquent speech. It had to happen somehow, but Kaidoh sure didn't understand the process.

Once, Kaidoh visited Inui before their evening run and found him writing a software program. When Kaidoh asked, Inui said it would make analyzing data easier, faster, more accurate. He invited Kaidoh to sit and explained the basics. Kaidoh didn't care for computers or software or how data went from times in a stopwatch to a list of exercises on his wall. Instead, his eyes drifted through the lines of code and he wondered if this is how Inui's mind was set up. Phrases and words, if-thens and colons and preordained colors schemes, ideas and dreams and statistics jumbled backwards and forwards between curling brackets with a semicolon placed neatly at the end of each thought. The phrases and punctuation swirled nonsensically in Kaidoh's own mind, but he was grateful for the time Inui took to explain and thanked his friend.

One hot, humid afternoon brought a heavy rain and the coach had no choice but to cancel practice. The raindrops fell heavily and loud on the empty court turf, carrying the distinct smell of summer showers through the sticky air. Inui told Kaidoh he needed new grip tape and wristbands, and if Kaidoh required anything he was welcome to join him. Kaidoh had nothing in particular to buy, but he nodded and accepted the offer.

Before they started out, Inui fumbled in his locker and turned back to Kaidoh, a sheepish smile revealing that he had somehow forgotten his umbrella. Shaking his head, Kaidoh wondered how such a smart person could so completely lack common sense sometimes. Maybe the ideas and hypotheses built up in Inui's mind like files crowded onto an already-cramped desk, with so many piles and stacks of thought-folders that no number of sticky notes, paper clips, or colorful tabs could keep the sense-papers from getting buried and lost in the mix. He lifted his umbrella over Inui's head and they stepped into the pattering rain with it imperfectly covering the two of them.

After walking for a few minutes, Kaidoh felt Inui's knuckles brush lightly against his own, then a hand gently grasped his palm. Looking up in surprise, Kaidoh's startled gaze met intelligent emerald eyes smiling at him behind square frames. Kaidoh flushed and turned away, but slowly intertwined his calloused fingers with Inui's. Kaidoh didn't understand how Inui's mind worked, and maybe he never would. But at that moment he decided it really didn't matter.

* * *

_A/N: Hey there! Thanks for reading! I don't write very often so I apologize if it's kind of garbled. (Also if it seems out of character for either of them.) I don't really see Kaidoh as a very introspective person; he's pretty straightforward I think. But it's still nice to write something slow and thoughtful every once in a while. I love Emerald Pair, but they're tricky to write. Even though I feel that they would eventually understand each other well on an emotional level, it would be hard for them to break past their differences at first. Inui is very analytic whereas Kaidoh is much more physical, preferring to practice and train harder and harder until he overcomes obstacles rather than devise some method of conquering them. Strategy versus stamina, so to speak. _

_In any case, I hope you enjoyed this little drabble. It's the first thing I've written in a long time (except of course the way-too-long-oh-gosh-why-am-I-still-continuing-this Rival Pair/MomoKai fic I have in the works). I'd like to write a companion piece from Inui's perspective, as I think Kaidoh's thought process would be just as much of a mystery to Inui as vice versa. (But that probably won't happen.)_


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